Conversations: Thief
by mumyou nanashi
Summary: Rey Za Burrel is merely just a name engraved in an epitaph now, but someone would like to think otherwise. Talia’s son visits Rey’s grave and the conversation that follows is anything but pleasant.


_**Summary: **Rey Za Burrel is merely just a name engraved in an epitaph now, but someone would like to think otherwise. Talia's son talks to Rey's grave and it is anything but pleasant._

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**The Thief**

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I've searched high and low for your grave. Who knew it was to be found only several paces from my mother's?

That's right. _My_ mother. Mine.

Not yours.

_Mine._

Mother never really liked Father much. She loved _that man._ She only married Father because it was the law. Maybe I should be grateful to the law, for because of it, I came into being. Nevertheless, I hate the law, because it was the reason Mother never really became truly happy.

She had a child. The one thing that she wanted above all.

But it wasn't enough to make her happy.

I wasn't enough.

I thought she wanted a child – me.

Or maybe it was you?

I guess she loved me… in her own, strangely selfish way. But when _that_ _man_ called her up, she threw her life away and followed him into his military endeavors. She threw us away, Father and me. They had a divorce, but because Mother would be away doing military work, I was to stay at my Father's custody.

Father never really liked me much. He doted on Mother, and I guess he was devastated when Mother left us. Mother did not at least go public with her relationship with _that man_. It was kept under wraps. It was so secretive that, in the end, even she did not know what was really going on.

She loved me…

But she loved you more.

Someone who wasn't even her blood and flesh. Someone who didn't even recognize her as a 'mother'. Someone who took her for granted. She died with you and _that man_, I was told. Father was devastated, of course. He never really paid much attention to me, but after that, he left me at a relative's house and disappeared. I was seven years old when I last saw him. I am now two months short of being eighteen. Do the math.

I haven't met you personally, but when I heard that my mother – _my _mother – died with you on Messiah, I just had to know, who the hell are you?

Who the hell are you to take my mother away from me?

What did you do to make her love you so much?

And then, I met Shinn Asuka and I knew.

You are nothing. You do not have an identity. A clone. A mere shell of a person. No father, no mother, so you decided to steal mine? A failed experiment. Doomed to die at an early age. So you decided to take my mother with you?

And then I knew.

She pitied you.

Oh, I could've laughed at the incongruity.

But then…

I wish it had been me that she pitied.

She died with the two of you – the men she loved in her life. I could care less if it was _that man_ that she loved and not Father. What really mattered to me was that it was you whom she chose.

Not me.

I envy you.

Even if they said you led a 'damned' life, I envied you.

You did not know what it was to have a mother, so you can't possibly understand the thought of losing one, right? You cannot lose what you never had. Isn't that right? Whence, I had a mother. Even if it was only for the first few years of my life, I experienced having a caring, wonderful mother. A mother who tended to my wounds, told me bedtime stories, and showed me the world. You grew up alone and afraid, ignorant of the world around you. You cried and no one cared. You slept to the sound of your sobs.

So, should I pity you then?

Would you believe me if I said that the tables were turned afterwards?

When my mother left, I became the unwanted and you became the doted child.

Can you guess what date it is today?

Today, I should be honoring my mother and thanking her for everything that she has done for me. What has she done for me? Would a few years of love and tenderness override a decade of abandonment?

No. I want _you_ to rise up on your grave and honor my mother.

Wasn't she _your_ mother?

This day is for people who have mothers. I am not one of those. And neither are you. Or perhaps, wherever you are, you are with her and celebrating Mother's Day. How happy. How touching. How very much like you.

Stealing my mother even in death.

I hear the sound of grass crunching, an indication that someone was coming towards me. Do you know who that person is?

Murrue Ramius.

I met her four years after my mother died. She didn't want to tell me the details. If it weren't for an overheard conversation, I wouldn't have known the real reason why she died. And even then, they didn't tell me who exactly was responsible for her death. I knew it was _that man_ and someone else. A child. Or a teenager. I searched for you, never knowing that you were so close by.

Murrue has been taking care of me for the past years. She was kind enough to give me the love and care of a mother that I had been missing for years. She said that she and my mother weren't really close – they actually belonged to different sides. But during the lull in the war – actually, shortly before the war – they talked about ships and subordinates and teenaged soldiers and children.

And before she died, she told Murrue, "I have a child. It's a boy."

Maybe this is the only thing that I could gloat to you about. The fact that my mother left with someone to take care of me. Now, isn't that nice? She runs off with another man and another 'son' but leaves me with a surrogate mother.

I know I sound bitter – who wouldn't? – but I don't hate her.

I can't bring myself to hate her.

You… on the other hand… are a different story.

"Rey?"

No, she's not talking to you.

She's talking to me.

Funny, isn't it?

We both have the same name.

My mother met you before me. I was named after you. Maybe to replace you? I'm a replacement. Imagine that. Here I was, accusing you of stealing my mother when it turns out, I am the thief.

Did I steal her from you?

Did my father steal her away from _that man_?

Maybe…theft runs in the family.

And would you look at that, I even stole your name! We both are thieves. I stole from you and you stole from me. Some would call it even. But then… who is the better thief?

You are dead now, but I still haven't won.

"What are you looking at, Rey?"

"Nothing."

_What a lie._

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**_Author's Notes:_**_I know I should be writing 'Biography of the Damned' or even 'Salute!' but I just couldn't resist. I've been planning to write this way before Mother's Day, and it just won't leave me alone!_

_Talia really had a son, but I don't know what his name is. All I know is how he looked like... when he was but a wee child. So, what do you think? Realistic enough?_

_Review. I'm in that period where I crave reviews._


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